Star puts knee to test as expectations for his return to action grow

Christmas for the Mavericks will come a little late.
But the promise of a great present should make it worth the wait.

Dirk Nowitzki went through his first contact work in practice Wednesday and
said he’s hoping to start having some fun after Christmas. He also said that
when he returns to action after more than two months of recovery from right knee
surgery, he will be more than happy to do so coming off the bench.

Just seeing Nowitzki on the court, playing two-on-two with teammates and
leaning on Chris Kaman in half-court drills, got the Mavericks excited. The
beacon of hope is getting closer, even if Nowitzki could not target an exact
date for his return.

“We’ll just see how it goes,” he said. “This is the first day stopping,
pushing off, moving. We’ll see how it reacts. I’m going to do that a couple
times and do some contact for a while. Maybe any time after Christmas, that’ll
be fun.

“[I at least want] a couple practices under my belt. But there’s no real date
set. So we’ll have to see how the knee responds to the first couple
workouts.”

As for when that date gets closer, Nowitzki said he would talk with the
coaching staff and determine the right way to ease back into the role of
franchise player.

“[We’ll] see what the smartest thing is, maybe come off the bench for the
first couple games, play around 20 to 25 minutes,” he said. “I’m not opposed to
obviously coming off the bench at the beginning and slowly finding my
rhythm.

“We haven’t addressed that yet, but it’s obvious I’m not going to play 35
minutes my first game out. That’s something I think we’re going to talk about
next week.”

Nowitzki expanded on exactly what was done to repair his knee and the fact
that he doesn’t feel limited in any way as he begins the final phase of his
recovery.

“It wasn’t really hurting that much in the first place,” he said of the knee,
which was arthroscopically cleaned up Oct. 19. “There was just stuff in there
that was irritating it and it was constantly swollen. We didn’t want to play the
season on a swollen knee, but it wasn’t hurting me that much. I wasn’t out there
limping.

“But the goal of the surgery was to clean it out so I don’t have to play on a
swollen knee for 82 games. Hopefully, from here on out, it’s going to respond
well to contact and running and jumping.”

And he said the movement so far has been encouraging.

“I thought I played decent,” he said of the Wednesday workout. “Obviously, my
legs are pretty shot. [It’s] the first time running and shooting and jumping, so
it’s going to take awhile for me to get back in halfway game shape. You can run
in the pool all you want, but it’s not like a 7-foot guy leaning on you, pushing
you around, and you’ve still got to make a move and jump and then concentrate to
make a shot. So I think it’s going to take awhile to get in halfway decent
shape. But for the first day, it felt pretty good.”

The only question left is when Nowitzki will be ready to go. The schedule
after Christmas has the Mavericks going to Oklahoma City on Dec. 27 for a
nationally televised game, then playing Denver at American Airlines Center the
following night. Since it might not be prudent to start Nowitzki’s comeback with
back-to-back games, the Denver contest might make for a sensible return
date.

Coach Rick Carlisle said Nowitzki has been doing work similar to what he did
Wednesday, which wasn’t a true, full-contact practice. But it was progress.

“He’ll be back at some point — when he’s ready,” Carlisle said. “He’s not
ready yet. That’s where we are. We don’t know when he’s going to play. He’s
making gradual progress, which is how this works when you have a scope. So when
it happens, it’ll happen. We hope it’s sooner than later, but we don’t have a
time yet.”

No matter when it comes, his return will be long anticipated. Nowitzki has
been suffering from cabin fever for the better part of a month. But at this
point, it makes no sense to cut any corners.

“Well, it’s almost, what, nine weeks?” he said. “I mean we’re not rushing it
anymore, it’s as slow as you can get, unfortunately. The swelling at the
beginning was just so bad, and we don’t really know why. Maybe I was trying too
early to do something. Nobody really knows.

“People react to surgery, I guess, different, and mine was just really
swollen, and that really set me back two or three weeks. Couldn’t really do
much. By that point, we started doing a little more, the strength was gone, my
wind was gone, so the last two weeks I had to work extremely hard to get some of
that back. So the first two or three weeks set me back a long time. At this
point, it’s not rushing it anymore.”

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